When is the individual NOT the end all be all?

[Husar]

That's easy to answer:
Whenever it's not about me.

Here's a related debate I just saw: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...--robert-reich

I think a lot of things in society and law today are about benefitting the society and some of them are increasingly disliked by the individualists. Things such as taxes, where the individuals have their money taken away to benefit everyone. It's hard to say where I personally set the line but I agree that often the same people who complain about the loss of morals and community spirit were/are the ones driving absolute individualism in economic matters and believe if you're out of a job it's entirely your own fault and you deserve no help.

Environmental protection is an issue of this sort. I am not a pure environmentalist but when individuals can make more profit or simply have more convenience by throwing plastic into nature, which ends up in our honey, our drinking water and the fish we eat, then I think the community should have an interest and ability to punish individuals for doing this since this can cause great harm in the long run.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

When it's about an idea?

[Brenus]

Hmm, the notion of individual facing a community is in fact quite recent. Until the modern age, the worst punishment was not death penalty but banishment, to be excluded from the Community. To be a lonely knight roaming the Earth was not nice. Lonely Heroes is a modern concept.
The problem is to find a balance between the power of the Community, where all is about social link and acceptance of norms (so against individual rights to be different) and individualism that shouldn’t be selfishness.
The result is written Constitution and sets of Laws. Taxes are one of the aspect, and military duties. I choose these 2: Whereas it is fine for most of the politicians to evade taxes (or dodging as they say) as it is THEIR money as said the UK Prime Minister (but morality wrong he added), to escape Military Duty is punished much harsher (even if it is THEIR life).
So, we can see a line of separation in the notion of Individual and Community duties. Polluting freely is accepted in the case of industries even if it is at the risk of destroying the at the moment only eco-system supporting human life. The individual rights of companies trump the common right of Humanity.
However, the right for Individual to exist as individual is in danger in all cultures where you have to conform to the norm, often with death if you don’t, as gays in many countries do.

I don’t have an answer: I am a leftist, so I think it should be a limit to greed, i.e. it should have a maximum salary (manager can’t have more than 20 times the lowest salary in the company). And I speak of salary, then not yet of incomes (shares would be included in salaries). Some think you shouldn’t have a limit of greed and it is perfectly acceptable that some get per week what other get per year (within the same company).
My system would not prevent manager to have high salary if they are competent, it would insured that the lowest get a decent salary.
The others for free greed think that if there are limits on salaries and incomes, it will destroy the individual creativity and harm the most vulnerable as it will be no jobs at all for them. They are the pessimistic bench. For them the only motive for work is greed, not the satisfaction of doing the right things or the pleasure to do. That is why they attack the social system as you have to force people to do to work. Do note they recognise that work is not liberation but a harsh reality. This is a rupture with the Conservative Speech (and Left from the 19-20 Century) of the freedom and dignity by work, source of Forced Labour Camps where criminals were supposed to regain their dignity by working (cheaper indeed). But that is a digression.

[The Lurker Below]

Things such as taxes, where the individuals have their money taken away to benefit everyone.

I agree with this and find it a pretty good summation. So any time you buy anything legally here, the individual is NOT the end all be all. Eating? Wearing clothes? Driving? Any of these activities, thanks to those taxes, benefit the whole as well as the individual.

You can probably find some gun-toting, wine-making, bombshelter-having, unshaven, half-a-sasquatch up in Idaho that defies it all, but drones are closing in on him/her this very moment.